The nation's grocers are being offered the ultimate labor-saving device: a checkout system in which shoppers tally their own grocery bills in the complete absence of store personnel. This "revolution" in supermarket productivity, called the Automatic Checkout Machine, is a sleek, audio-visual relative of the computer-like money dispensers at banks throughout the country. What is being called "a giant leap forward" in grocery technology was unveiled here earlier this week by CheckRobot Inc.

Samsung has unveiled the Galaxy S5, the latest version of its flagship smartphone. The device includes a fingerprint scanner and will go on sale in April. Unlike in previous years, when Samsung announced new Galaxy S models with larger and larger screens, this year the South Korean tech giant focused its presentation on a handful of key features. Samsung said the Galaxy S5 will include a fingerprint scanner that can be used to unlock the phone and make mobile payments. If this sounds familiar, that's because Apple introduced a similar feature with the iPhone 5s when that device was announced last September.

Re "Airports in Scramble to Add Security," Sept. 9: In looking at the sketches of the proposed construction, it seems that the area that concerned me most on a recent and first flight since Sept. 11 is not being changed. My concern was with putting my carry-on (one shoulder tote) through the scanner with all of my documentation, including tickets, billfold, digital camera, etc., then having to step to one side to be wanded, while my tote sat at the end of the scanner--where anyone could have picked it up and walked back out of the area.

General Electric Co. shares fell the most in seven months after Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt failed to deliver on a profit-margin forecast that he had been repeating for more than a year. GE shares dropped 62 cents, or 2.3%, to $26.58 on Friday after GE said profit margins at units making jet engines, medical scanners and locomotives expanded last year less than the 0.7 percentage point that Immelt set as a goal in December 2012 and affirmed last month. The misstep comes as Immelt focuses on manufacturing growth while shrinking the Fairfield, Conn., company's finance unit.

WATERTOWN, Mass. - With the Boston area jumpy from the deadly marathon bombings, a shooting that killed a police officer at MIT and a nearby carjacking triggered a massive police response. By early Friday, one suspect was in custody and police had cordoned off an area of the Boston suburb of Watertown, where witnesses reported loud explosions. Police followed the carjacked vehicle to Watertown, according to scanner traffic. It was unclear whether the incidents had anything to do with Monday's marathon bombings, but hours into the siege police issued an alert on the scanner for a white male wearing a gray hoodie, with black curly hair.

Five Atlanta-area firefighters were taken hostage after a medical call Wednesday, and a standoff with a gunman was ongoing. Four firefighters remained captive in the Suwanee home by evening. One had been released to move a truck that was outside the house, officials said. A SWAT team surrounded the house as negotiations continued. WSB-TV reported that the home was in foreclosure by Freddie Mac. The gunman had "multiple handguns, multiple rifles," according to emergency scanner audio captured from local officials and posted online . "We are in a situation where we have an armed person, and he is requesting certain utilities to be turned back on at his house, and he is armed, and we are in the room with him," said one speaker in the scanner audio -- apparently one of the firefighters in the home.

Jane Engle missed an obvious and overwhelmingly important point in her story ["Are We There Yet?," June 12]. Since Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists armed with bombs have twice attempted to board aircraft, with the intention of destroying the aircraft. Both of them were successful in getting through the security inspection and on to the aircraft. They both attempted to detonate their bombs in flight. The only reason that they did not succeed was their own incompetence, combined with the intervention of passengers.

It is obvious that President Reagan has not gone grocery shopping in several years. If he had he would have seen modern laser technology at work. The scanners used at the checkout counters sometimes require that a package be passed over them five or six times. I am concerned that more "sophisticated" uses of lasers (i.e. "Stars Wars') will encounter similar problems. When an item is scanned incorrectly in the supermarket the shopper receives that item for free. A package of doughnuts for free is fine; an incoming missile is something entirely different.

Often found at the checkout counter, laser scanners decipher information contained within bar codes, allowing a host computer to process data such as product names and costs. Projecting a laser beam off a rotating prism or mirror, the device reads the bar code, noting the width of its bars and spaces. The beam is reflected from the bar code back to the scanner, where it is analyzed.

Once a big-ticket item, scanners are becoming very affordable. For as little as $99, you can buy a letter-size flatbed scanner that can convert text, photos and drawings into computer documents you can edit, print, post on the Web or e-mail to friends and family. Scanners aren't the only way to get pictures into a PC.

It didn't take long for Apple's fingerprint scanner to get a follower: HTC reportedly will announce a device with a similar feature next week. The Wall Street Journal reports that on Oct. 15, the Taiwanese phone maker will unveil the HTC One Max, a larger version of its flagship smartphone that will include a fingerprint scanner much like the one Apple unveiled with the iPhone 5s last week. The new iPhone's fingerprint scanner, called the Touch ID, lets users unlock their device by simply having their fingertips scanned.

Apple unveiled its latest iPhone model Tuesday, and it'll feature a better camera than before as well as a fingerprint scanner for security. The new version of the device, called the iPhone 5S, will feature a camera with a larger sensor than before for higher-quality images. It will also use two LED lights for its flash. Besides hardware improvements, the camera will also be able to shoot in more modes than before. IPhone 5S users will be able to shoot in burst mode, to take multiple pictures in rapid succession.

There's no appeasing the paranoid, it seems. The Transportation Security Administration has done away with its controversial “nude scanners,” which took full-body X-rays of passengers to ensure no one would board a plane with hidden explosives. While some found a comfort in those scanners -- why expose a plane full of people to any vulnerabilities when there's an easy solution? -- privacy advocates were unsettled that TSA employees could see nude images of passengers' bodies, even though screeners were walled off in separate rooms.

The "nude scanners" are gone. The full-body scanners that used X-rays to create what look like nude images of passengers have been packed away and removed from airports across the country. The 250 or so machines were removed about two weeks ago, before the June 1 deadline set by Congress. But privacy advocates aren't satisfied, noting that the Transportation Security Administration is still using full-body scanners that employ a different technology. "They've never made a case that these scanners are better than using metal detectors or swabs to detect the use of explosives," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a research center that sued the TSA in 2010 over the use of all full-body scanners.

The "nude scanners" are gone. The full-body scanners that used X-rays to create what looks like a nude image of passengers have been packed away and removed from airports across the country. The 250 or so machines were removed about two weeks ago, before the June 1 deadline set by Congress. But privacy advocates aren't satisfied, noting that the Transportation Security Administration is still using full-body scanners that employ a different technology. "They've never made a case that these scanners are better than using metal detectors or swabs to detect the use of explosives," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a research center that sued the TSA in 2010 over the use of all full-body scanners.

Privacy rights groups on Monday filed a lawsuit against Los Angeles County's two major police departments after the agencies refused to turn over information collected by electronic license plate scanners, the suit claimed. The Los Angeles Police Department and county Sheriff's Department have made use of the plate-reading technology for several years. Typically mounted on patrol vehicles, the small cameras continuously scan license plates and check them against criminal databases in search of stolen cars and cars registered to known fugitives.

A new device that uses radio frequencies rather than radiation to allow physicians to diagnose diseases will go into use next month at the $2.5-million San Gabriel Valley Magnetic Resonance Imaging Center, 740 E. Arrow Highway. The device, called a magnetic resonance system, will be operated by Diagnostic Imaging Services Inc. of Culver City for the Foothill Presbyterian Hospital of Glendora and Inter-Community Medical Center of Covina.

October 27, 1997 | P.J. HUFFSTUTTER, TIMES STAFF WRITER; P.J. Huffstutter covers high technology for The Times

For years, the craft of making a surfboard has lured waves of artisans who turn slabs of raw material into a sleek shape. It's an art that requires time and experience and many, many mistakes, experts say. These craftspeople carry on the art form's traditions, handed down from older days when Polynesian Islanders found ways of carving up koa trees and making them float. It's probably the last arena where anyone would expect computer automation.

Airline passengers have been walking through full-body scanners for nearly five years, but only now are fliers getting a chance to officially tell the federal government what they think about the screening machines. In response to a lawsuit, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit ruled that the Transportation Security Administration could continue to use the scanners as a primary method of screening passengers. But the court ordered the TSA to give the public a 90-day comment period, which the agency did not do when it launched the scanning program.

WATERTOWN, Mass. - With the Boston area jumpy from the deadly marathon bombings, a shooting that killed a police officer at MIT and a nearby carjacking triggered a massive police response. By early Friday, one suspect was in custody and police had cordoned off an area of the Boston suburb of Watertown, where witnesses reported loud explosions. Police followed the carjacked vehicle to Watertown, according to scanner traffic. It was unclear whether the incidents had anything to do with Monday's marathon bombings, but hours into the siege police issued an alert on the scanner for a white male wearing a gray hoodie, with black curly hair.